The challenge is to rebuild lives and civic infrastructure – sewerage networks, drinking water supply, power lines, mobile phone towers and networks, hospitals, schools, places of worship, playgrounds, and places of recreation. Photo: AP/PTI
India should offer financial grants, the supply of building materials, and engineering and construction talent, and Indian firms should set up subsidiaries in the region
The Gaza war sees a lull. It would be wild optimism to infer anything more lasting from the ceasefire agreement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is still being negotiated, even after US President Joe Biden, who has been urging such a deal for most of last year, and the leader of Qatar, the venue of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, have celebrated the conclusion of the deal.
As it is, the deal commits Israel to hold fire for six weeks, starting Sunday, January 19. There is no agreement on who would run Gaza, once hostilities end. Only with a political solution can there be any kind of permanent peace. The political solution preferred by the ruling alliance of Israel, which includes parties that believe Jews should reclaim Judaea and Samaria, now known as the West Bank, and Gaza, referred to in the Bible as Azzah, would wipe Palestine off the map. They believe these areas should be cleared of Palestinians, to make way for Israeli settlements. The rest of the world, including, of course, the people of Palestine, think otherwise.
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Most would be happy with a two-state solution, the state of Israel coexisting with a democratic state of Palestine. An idealist minority in Israel thinks there should be only one state, with Jews and Palestinians coexisting in peace, and electing a common, secular government. An even smaller minority, comprising extremists, who believe that the state of Israel has no right to exist, wants to abolish the Zionist state.
Rebuilding Gaza
If the ceasefire lasts beyond 42 days, and mutates into a prolonged cessation of active hostilities, the question of rebuilding Gaza would come to the fore. The task would begin with clearing 42 million tonnes of rubble, according to one estimate.
The challenge is to rebuild lives, maimed by loss of loved ones, destruction of homes, and of all manner of civic infrastructure – sewerage networks, drinking water supply, power lines, mobile phone towers and networks, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and, even if this could sound bizarre in the backdrop of grim tragedy in which such reconstruction takes place, playgrounds and places of recreation.
Also Read: Israel, Hamas reached ceasefire, hostage deal: Biden
Expect haggling over who would foot the bill, who would get the contracts, who would supply the materials and the manpower. Uncertainty over how long the reconstructed edifices would last before the next Israeli strike demolished them, would come in the way of design and structural engineering that would make sense in a durable peace.
India should be proactive
India should be proactive in the reconstruction effort. It should offer financial grants, and the supply of building materials and engineering and construction talent. Indian companies should set up subsidiaries in the region, not just in the territory of Palestine, to create new jobs, industrial capacity, and incomes in the region.
Financing reconstruction, by itself, would produce temporary goodwill. Building an industrial infrastructure in the process of rebuilding Gaza would accomplish in the region, on a mini-scale, what the Marshall Plan did for Europe. Or more accurately, it would accomplish something better than what the Marshall Plan had.
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War-ravaged Europe already had the expertise and the industrial capacity to produce the wherewithal for rebuilding bombed-out towns and cities. American aid ended up reindustrialising Western Europe. Palestine’s hinterland has no parallel capacity or expertise. A large programme of reconstruction would create fresh industrial capacity, and train people into the kind of talent the world values.
China’s role
China is bound to shift the focus and bounty of its Belt and Road initiative to the ruins of Gaza. China desperately needs export outlets for its industrial capacity that is going underutilised, thanks to the slowdown in China and the virtual collapse of house construction in the country. Belt and Road is China’s answer to the perennial question - how to win friends and influence people. China has the financial muscle to make a good portion of its project financing in Palestine available as grants.
If the Biden administration had continued, instead of having to give way to a Trump administration on January 20, largescale aid from the US would have been a certainty, for rebuilding Palestine. Trump’s backers are allergic to Palestine, and see any government spending outside the US as money wasted. When there is so much of America that the socialists, radical leftists, and woke champions have destroyed and is in need of rebuilding, in order to make America great again, why spend money in Palestine?
Opportunity for US construction firms
There is a contingency, apart from Israel seeking US help in bringing a semblance of order back to Gaza, which could persuade a Trump administration to loosen its purse strings for Palestine. Large American construction companies dread Trump’s threat to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. Such immigrants are a vital part of the labour force in construction, apart from in agriculture, facility management (including cleaning toilets and wiping office desks), and hospitality.
Also Read: ‘All hell will break out’: Trump gives Hamas ultimatum to release hostages before Jan 20
A shortage of workers would halt construction activity in the US. The industry would need new work orders, while the worker shortage is addressed. Gaza reconstruction would provide an external market for the construction industry.
Aid from Europe unlikely
Europe is unlikely to pitch in majorly for rebuilding Palestine. They have their own problems to sort out, if they are to preserve their self-image as the avant-garde of civilised humanity and keep growing xenophobia at bay. If Trump decides to turn off the tap on funds for Ukraine, Europe would struggle to find excuses for forcing Ukraine to end the war on whatever terms Russia is willing to offer. Smart European politicians would argue that the US, in any case, had been the financial and military backer of Israel in the war on Gaza war, and has the moral responsibility to clean up after the war.
Also Read: How Trump could answer the Palestinian question
The rebuilding of Gaza would be a great opportunity for Beijing to show off its humanitarian colours. India should join up with Japan to rustle up some resistance to Chinese monopolisation of post-war reconstruction of Gaza.
This is a tussle for which Palestine should not mind serving as the battlefield.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)
